ErnestHemingway was one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century, both as a Nobel Prize- winning author and as a legendary personality. His novels continue to be read and studied, while his life and family tragedies are still written and talked about. Let’s take a look at names from the Hemingway family tree.

If you like names with a hint of mystery, a vintage British feel and a splash of the exotic, come and join me in the drawing room and I shall reveal my deductions about names from AgathaChristie’s novels.

Christie is known as “the Queen of Crime” for good reason. In a career spanning over fifty years and over seventy novels, she shaped modern crime writing. Not just books, but also detective dramas, murder mystery parties, and the board game Cluedo (called Clue in NorthAmerica) wouldn’t be the same without her.

Even if you haven’t read any of her books, you probably recognise the basic elements. There’s the genteel setting (like an English country home), the suspicious death, the trail of clues and red herrings, secrets and scandals, and the brilliant detective who rounds up all the suspects and explains how they’ve cleverly worked out whodunnit.

Christie’s character names, like the characters themselves, are eccentric and memorable, but also true to their time.

“…there is great power, and great peril, in a name.” The Tombs of Atuan

UrsulaLe Guin is one of the best-known science fiction and fantasy authors of our time. For the last fifty years and more, she’s woven gripping stories and tackled no end of big topics: gender, class, the environment, the power of words – and the power of names.

She’s best known for her books about the world of Earthsea. If you’ve read any, you’ll probably remember it contains wizards (and a wizarding school long before Hogwarts was dreamt of), dragons, kings, dark powers and ordinary people. You might also remember names are hugely important – literally a matter of life and death.

I’m starting this series with my favourite 19th century novelist, ThomasHardy. If you’re looking for whimsical Victorian names, biblical rarities or wholesome old-timey nicknames, you’ll find them all in his books.

Hardy is famous for his stories of drama, scandal and (usually) doomed love set in rural southwest England, which he called by its historic name of Wessex. (Incidentally, that was also the name of his dog.) Besides the dramatics, his novels are also full of warm scenes of ordinary country life, which Hardy saw vanishing in his lifetime.

His two best-known characters both have short, sweet and successful names. You might recognise them from the title of their books.

Jude(the Obscure) is no longer an obscure name at all. It’s been rising in popularity over the last couple of decades, helped by JudeLaw bringing it to public attention, and the Beatles song ‘Hey, Jude‘. In the US it ranks at 162 and might just break into the top 100 in the next few years. It’s already there in England and Wales, at 65.

Tess(of the d’Urbervilles) is declining in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, ranking 998 in the US and 763 in England and Wales). That’s not the whole story, as there are probably a fair few girls called Tessa and Teresa who answer to Tess. In the Netherlands, where short girls’ names are very on-trend, Tess was the top name in 2013, and in 2015 was no. 7.

His characters cover the whole social range from servants and farmhands to landed gentry, and their names are equally varied. Let’s take a look at some of the naming styles he used.